Germany

10/31/2013

Who has time to go jogging when you've got a bajillion emails to sort through....?

You read it here first: an exclusive interview with a covert, clandestine, undercover operative from the ultra-secret, shadowy, under-the-radar but much publicized U.S. National Security Agency.

Q: So dude. busy times?

A: Busy? Can the Pope swim? Is a duck Catholic? Are you kiddin' me?

Q: According to Edward Snowden and other leakers, you've been eavesdropping on 60 million Spaniards, 46 million Italians, millions of Brazilians and Mexicans. You've skimmed data from 70 million French phone records and bugged German Chancellor Angela Merkel even before she was in office.

A: So why do you think Eddie left the agency?

Q: You mean the ethical dilemma of snooping into so many people's private lives?

A: Geddoutahere! It was the overtime. You think we enjoy doing this? Like, one minute you're hacking into a handful of would-be-terrorists' cellphones and the next you're sucking up every bleep and blurb that's sent out over every electronic signal. Think about it.

Q: So who planned this huge spy net?

A: That's way above my pay grade. But they don't spend 24/7 with their eyes and ears glued to computers in a basement that smells like old running shoes. Sometimes I feel like my head is going to explode. And not in a good way.

Q: What have you learned from all those hacked communications?

A: There's two categories: drop-dead boring and just-shoot-me-now boring. Do you have any idea how friggin' tedious other people's stuff is? The Spanish! Always whining about unemployment. The Italians and their ungrateful bambini. The French! Toujours in le snit.

Q: So no smoking guns?

A: A whole bunch of people talked about wanting to kill their spouses. But that's normal.

Q: What did you learn about Angela Merkel?

A: Don't get me started. Those three-hour gabfests with Christine Lagarde about the Greek debt. The endless bickering with the Social Democrats. The dry cleaning that never came back on time. No excitement at all -- not like the Sarkozys or Dominique Strauss-Kahn. And all her sentences ran backwards.

Q:And now we hear the agency has infiltrated Yahoo and Google worldwide.

A: Tell me about it. That was the last straw. Nearly 200 million records. Who messaged who and who wrote back. And what they said. Worse than a 200-year-long rerun of Bob and Ted and Carol and Alice.

Q: Has all that snooping affected your, er, private life?

A: It's totally over. I go home at night, my wife says, "Agent 5386," (I can't tell her my real name), "you never listen to me." That's what she says. Same every night. Now she's filing for divorce and moving in with her personal trainer.

Q: And you?

A: This is my last week on the job. I'm going into a monastery. Not one of those happy-clappy places where everybody is tweeting the Pope. Somewhere there's total silence. And nothing is wired except the light bulbs.

Q: Do you think Edward Snowden is a traitor?

A: If anyone can roll back this crazy work load he can. Bring it on, I say. In the agency the guy's a hero.

Olivia Wardhas covered politics, conflicts and human rights from the former Soviet Union to South Asia, the Middle East and the U.S. Her phone has been tapped in at least two countries.

06/19/2013

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande at EU summit in Brussels in May. Bertrand Langlois/Getty Images

Who says Canada isn’t a world leader in international relations?

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s rating of Russia as a minus one on the G8 scale was refreshing. After all, since Moscow elbowed its way into the hallowed hallways of developed, and supposedly like-minded G7 nations in 1997, nobody had dared to say the unsayable – that it was maybe a titch premature.

As for Iran, leader-elect Hassan Rowhani hadn’t even warmed up the presidential chair before Foreign Minister John Baird was declaring him a “puppet” and the whole election thing a sham. Turns out the Ayatollah Khamenei is still in charge. And – why pussyfoot -- everyone knows it.

So much for Canada’s bland-and-boring image. A new era of exciting bare-knuckle diplomacy, Ottawa-style, is long overdue, and as fresh as a splash of whatever fills Lake Ontario these days.

Take German President Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande. A match made in the European Union but definitely not in heaven.

Merkel: Ach! So there you are, you little socialist salamander, ready to hand out more of the taxpayer’s euros to those lazy, quiche-nibbling slackers and running the economy into the ground so decent hard-working Germans can pick up the tab…

Hollande: Enough with your arrogant Teutonic lectures. Je m’en fous. Take some time off, mon ange. Spend a weekend at a spa in Vichy. There’s a special on fiscal relaxation.

The next meeting between President Barack Obama and Afghan leader Hamid Karzai could be more down to earth and candid too.

Karzai: welcome to our country. Not your country. That place next to Pakistan, which we don’t like very much either. And when you reach the door just leave the cheque on the table.

Obama: so you can hand it out to your relatives? I don’t think so. We’ve spent at least $1 trillion on this country and we want results. How much more do we have to put out to get freedom and democracy around here? Cough up or we’re putting the Taliban on the payroll.

Why should the southern hemisphere preserve the niceties of old-fashioned diplomacy? It’s no secret that South African President Jacob Zuma and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe are not best friends, in spite of old freedom-fighting ties.

Zuma: another year, another election fraud. Didn’t I tell you to get those political reforms in order before you ordered the poll? You may have had a lot of surgery, but let’s face it, you’re 89. How long do you expect to go on here?

Mugabe: as long as the botox holds out, sweetie. And if I were you I wouldn’t go strutting around telling the neighbors what to do. You’re just another white man in a black man’s skin. And frankly, it doesn’t look so good on you. I can give you a number of someone to fix that.

All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means.- Zhou Enlai.

Olivia Wardhas covered conflict, politics and international diplomacy at the UN, the former Soviet Union, Europe, the Middle East and South Asia, winning national and international awards.

A bit of background: The embargo was put in place in
May 2011, shortly after protests began. Among the 22 measures, it prohibits the import and export of arms and equipment, which may be used for internal repression. The purpose was to put pressure on Assad’s government -- but it also applies to rebels.

However, the war is now in its third year and shows no sign
of ending. The 27-member European Union is divided about what to do next.
France and Britain want the embargo lifted to help the opposition.

Here are two thoughtful voices on why the embargo
should stay in place:

Middle East journalist and author Patrick Cockburn writes that no one is winning the war despite the rhetoric
from some Western politicians and journalists who claim more weapons to rebels would push the regime over the edge. He points out that since March 2011, rebels have
only managed to capture one out of 14 provincial capitals. Assad’s
strategy is retrenchment and consolidation -- not defeat.

“In recent weeks government forces have opened up the road
that leads west from Homs to the Mediterranean coast and the road from Damascus
south to the Jordanian border. They have expanded the territory they hold
around the capital and trained a militia of sixty thousand, the National
Defence Force, to guard positions once held by the Syrian army. This strategy
of retrenchment and consolidation isn’t new. About six months ago the army
stopped trying to keep control of outlying positions and focused instead on
defending the main population centres and the routes linking them. These
pre-planned withdrawals took place at the same time as real losses on the
battlefield, and were misinterpreted outside Syria as a sign that the regime
was imploding.”

He concludes: “The evidence from Syria itself is that more
weapons will simply mean more dead and wounded.”

The international charity Oxfam today issued a statement
warning of "devastating consequences" if the embargo ends. The opposition is fractured, it is
impossible to monitor whether transferred weapons would be used to commit
violations, and the knock-on humanitarian effect would be a disaster.

Anna Macdonald, head of arms control said: “International
efforts should be focused on halting arms transfers to all sides and finding a
political solution to the crisis…Transferring more weapons to Syria can only
exacerbate a hellish scenario for civilians.”

Hamida Ghafour is
a foreign affairs reporter at the Star. She has lived and worked in the Middle
East and Asia for more than 10 years and is the author of a book on
Afghanistan. Follow her on Twitter @HamidaGhafour

05/07/2013

The Auschwitz and Birkenau death camps are seen in this 2005 file photo. (JANEK
SKARZYNSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

The Holocaust’s most
infamous death camps will remain open to visitors.

Four years ago, the
Polish government asked for financial help to pay for the maintenance and
upkeep of the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps that were run
during World War II in Nazi-occupied Poland.

As many as 960,000 Jews died at Auschwitz, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Many died in
gas chambers there, while others died of starvation. Other estimates suggest as many as 3 million people died at the Auschwitz and Birkenau camps.

The Auschwitz camp includes
46 buildings on 50 acres, including two-storey red brick barracks, a crematorium
and concrete administration buildings. In addition, Birkenau, a satellite camp about three kilometres away, according to Smithsonian Magazine, “sprawls over more than 400
acres and has 30 low-slung brick barracks and 20 wooden structures, railroad
tracks and the remains of four gas chambers and crematoria.”

Now, the Polish government says enough money has been raised
to guarantee that the camps will continue to operate as historical sites. While
Poland
originally set about trying to raise $158 million, organizers have secured
commitments worth $127 million.

Germany,
which has confronted the shame of Hitler’s rule, has contributed $78 million. The U.S.
added another $15 million. Canada’s
contribution is $400,000.

“It is a dark part of our history, of the world’s history,” Andrzej Fafara, a Polish diplomat based in Ottawa, said in an interview.
“When you are there on the site, you can understand how important this is to
keep as a reminder of how tragic those days were.”

In Canada,
Shimon Fogel, chief executive with the Ottawa-based Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said the preservation
of Auschwitz is important because thousands of
Jewish students visit the former concentration camp each year.

“For us in Canada
it’s almost a rite of passage,” Fogel said. “It exposes young people for the
first time other than an abstract, academic way to the horrors of the
Holocaust. That’s so important because the number of people who are survivors with
direct exposure to the Holocaust is decreasing.”

I asked Fogel whether Auschwitz and Birkenau were ever in real danger of closing, considering Israel may have a vested interest in rightfully ensuring the Holocaust is never forgotten.

"I think there was a real danger of those camps falling into a bad state of disrepair, but perhaps not a real danger of closing," Fogel said. " I think Israel isn't so worried about the camps. Israel is much more focused on its own intiatives and programs to preserve memories. For Israel, the Holocaust still is not over. You still have issues to resolve like stolen art and Swiss bank issues and insurance. I think there's a degree of ambivalence between Israel and the European governments in general."

Rick Westhead is a foreign
affairs writer at the Star. He was based in India as the Star’s South
Asia bureau chief from 2008 until 2011 and reports on
international aid and development. Follow him on Twitter @rwesthead

04/19/2013

The Sistine Chapel at the Vatican, London's Tower Bridge and the Louvre in Paris are some of Europe's most fabled heritage sites. Travelling across the continent you'd think the Europeans had no difficulty preserving and promoting their historic monuments which are recognized the world over. For the most part that's true. But there are plenty of places that are falling down and need urgent help.

Europa Nostra, the heritage organization, has come up with a list of 14 most endangered monuments and sites -- ranging from churches to gaslights -- that need quick action.

In June, the list of 14 will be whittled down to a final seven at Europa Nostra's congress in Athens. A team of heritage specialists and technical experts will put together a rescue plan for the seven sites. Financial experts from the European Investment Bank Group will help come up with a strategy to raise money for the restorations. Not an easy task in these cash-strapped times.

Here is a selection of the 14 most endangered:

St. Paul and Peter Church, Armenia. The church dates back to the 5th century and is one of the first Christian structures. It is damaged because of regular flooding.

Photo courtesy of Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Armenia

Berlin's gas lights were installed 200 years ago and still work perfectly fine. A plan to replace them with modern electric version is opposed by residents and tourists who love the romance of the old-fashioned street lights.

Photo courtesy: Bertold Kujath – Gaslicht-Kultur e.V.

This 2nd century Roman amphitheatre was discovered in the 1960s in Durres, Albania. It is threatened by urban sprawl.

Photo courtesy of the Association for the Development of Cultural Tourism, Tirana, Albania

Conservationists from the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities have come together on the divided island to put together a joint plan to save a 1.5 kilometre historic buffer zone in Nicosia's centre which has been badly neglected.

Photo courtesy of Cyprus Architectural Heritage Organization

These 17th century fortifications designed to protect the city in the beautiful mountains of Briancon, France are decaying.

Hamida Ghafour is a foreign affairs reporter at the Star. She has lived and worked in the Middle East and Asia for more than 10 years and is the author of a book on Afghanistan. Follow her on Twitter @HamidaGhafour

04/11/2013

Nearly seven decades after the end of World War II, German prosecutors say they found a list of 50 former Auschwitz guards still alive in Germany and are looking into launching prosecutions for their role in the horrors that took place at the infamous death camp.

The news comes at an especially poigant time, as Canadian Jews marked Holocaust Memorial Day this week with ceremonies and activities in various cities across the country to remember the six million Jews killed in the Nazi extermination campaign.

Der Speigel reported that Schrimm's office received the list of names of guards at the infamous death camp from the museum at the memorial site.

"Auschwitz isn't our only goal, we're also checking on the guards of the other extermination camps," Schrimm told Der Spiegel.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center which tracks Nazi war criminals also announced it would launch a new campaign for Operation Last Chance II, offering rewards for information leading to the prosecution of death camp guards and Einsatzgruppen members.

Schrimm explained to Der Spiegel that his office is using a "recent re-interpretation of German criminal law" in order to go after those who may have been small but important cogs in the Holocaust killing machine and hid "behind the argument that they were following orders."

But even with the names of the guards, prosecution -- much less conviction -- could be slow and uncertain.

Schrimm told Der Spiegel his office would first have to launch preliminary investigations to see which of the 50 Auschwitz guards were "healthy enough and eligible" to stand trial.

The cases would then be handed over to regional state prosecutors' offices.
Der Spiegel reports that German courts have convicted around 6,650 Nazi war criminals in 36,000 trials since 1947, but that most of those convictions occurred before 1950.

It also said that the overwhelming number of sentences amounted to less than one year in jail.

Julian Sher is a foreign affairs and investigative journalist with the Star. He can be reached at jsher@thestar.ca and on Twitter at @juliansher

04/07/2013

Photos of killed people donated by survivors are displayed on a wall inside the Gisozi memorial in Kigali, depicting the horros of Rwanda's genocide. (Radu Sigheti/Reuters)

In the years leading up to World War II, long before the construction of gas chambers, Nazi party leaders hardly kept their feelings about Jews a secret.

Six years before the outbreak of war, on Apr. 1, 1933, the Nazis organized a countrywide anti-Jewish boycott, using radio and newspapers, the main media outlets of the day, to spread their message.

Decades later, before any Tutsis had been killed with machetes, Hutu leaders in Rwanda in 1993 and 1994 used a local radio station, Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines, to spew venom attacks about Tutsis, comparing them to cockroaches.

Both examples are a reminder, Chris Tuckwood says, that genocides typically follow a host of early warning signals.

Tuckwood, 28, is one of the co-founders of a new Toronto-based non-profit called The Sentinel Project, which organizers say is dedicated to hate-speech detection and alerts.

“We’re watching Iran pretty closely,” Tuckwood said. “What we’re seeing with the Bahai religious minority is concerning. The discrimination they face is quite advanced. They’re excluded from public life, can’t get public-sector jobs, aren’t allowed education after high school, and their homes are frequent victims of vandalism.”

Some Iranians, who are followers of Shiite Islam believe Bahaism is tantamount to blasphemy because it promotes the belief in a 19th century prophet.

In Hungary and other parts of Europe, Roma claim to be victims of persecution, and hate speech is even visible in the U.S. So why isn't the upstart NGO monitoring those countries?

"It's a good point," Tuckwood said. "We would do more right away if we had the resources."

Among the tools offered by Sentinel is an Internet application called Hatebase, which combs social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook, and local language news sites and blogs in a search of words that may signal brewing ethnic conflict.

The interface, developer Timothy Quinn, allows users to refine hate speech terms by region and use mapping to document when and how hate speech is used.

For instance, the database includes a number of derogatory names and their definitions. Users can click “I have been called this” or “I have overheard someone else called this” and document where on a Google world map the slur occurred.

It’s a similar method to one being used by health researchers who map the outbreak of communicable diseases.

“People use Twitter to cite and follow Hollywood stars, so why not use the same tool to identify threats like this?” said Jack Chow, the U.S. ambassador on global HIV/AIDS from 2001-3 who is on Sentinel’s advisory board.

Tuckwood, a former Canadian soldier who has his masters degree in disaster management, said he's hoping Jewish and Armenian communities, both of which are sensitive to hate-speech issues, will offer funding to allow them to hire fulltime staff.

It’s not easy to set up a new NGO, Tuckwood concedes. But he says his group’s independence offers them a free voice.

“If you look at the UN adviser focused on genocide, there’s so much baggage that comes along with making a statement about the risk of genocide in a particular country,” Tuckwood said. “When they do say something, it’s always in the typical, bland, diplomatic language. But we can say what we see and don’t have to worry about conversations happening only behind closed doors.”

Rick Westhead is a foreign
affairs writer at the Star. He was based in India as the Star’s South
Asia bureau chief from 2008 until 2011 and reports on
international aid and development. Follow him on Twitter @rwesthead

03/17/2013

A young cosplayer is pictured as
she visits the book fair in Leipzig, eastern Germany, on Sunday. Cosplayers are people following a trend from Japan and
performing with costumes and accessories to represent a specific character.
They have become an integral part of the Leipzig
book fair. More than 2,000 exhibitors from 43 countries present their products
during the fair running until Sunday. (HENDRIK SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)

David Hasselhoff has put his name behind a campaign to preserve one of the few
remaining sections of the Berlin Wall.

And in Germany, The Hoff's name carries weight.

The American actor best known for starring in "Knight Rider" and
"Baywatch" is fondly remembered by many Germans for releasing a schmaltzy song
called "Looking for Freedom" shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in
1989.

Hasselhoff said Sunday that a real estate developer's plans to
move part of the wall was "like tearing down an Indian burial ground" because of
the great historical importance it had.

Berliners have rallied against the plan they say is part of a
wider trend of steamrolling Berlin's tumultuous history to make way for gleaming
developments in the now unified capital.

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